Cold War Case Study

1. In what ways did the Cold War provide for a congruence of House members ' and senators ' goals of good public policy and re-election? Please provide detailed explanation and specific examples to support your answer.

The Cold War was an extinctual threat because the United States and the world was under a threat of nuclear war. Russia and the United States had nuclear warheads aimed at each country. Cuban Missile crises was the closest America had come to entering a nuclear war with Russia. Other conflicts such as Vietnam and Russian invasion of Afghanistan was the result of the Cold War. These proxy war were based on the stop of communism or the attempted to spread communism into the middle east. Because of this threat both the

J., Ginsberg, B., Shepsle, K. A., & Ansolabehere, S. (2017). American government: power & purpose. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. doi:http://wwnorton.com/college/polisci/american-government12/core/ch/08/principles.aspx

2. How did the fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of the Cold War threat lead to a conflict in members ' policy and political goals? Please provide detailed explanation and specific examples to support your answer.

When the cold war was over it was a pivotal time with military in the United States. Technology changed how the race to keep the status of superior in arms against Russia. Also, the bases and military equipment were old and obsolete. So, when the Department of Defense started to change how warfare conducted and budget reductions, states where the economy was built on the military economy was going lose out. It also did not stop there, because the cold war allowed for the military complex to expand to private businesses who supplied the different military branches the equipment and weapons used for war. (Celebrating Manufacturing Technology). The reduction of forces and need for older type weapons base consolidation, the military budget went from $97 billion in 1985 to $44 billion in 1998. What is surprising is that while the elections might have gotten contentious, the reelections were not impacted because the Senate and Congress delegated the power of base closing and consolidation to

(1998, February 27). The Shrinking Military Complex After the Cold War, the Pentagon Is Just Another Customer. Retrieved April 18, 2017, from After the Cold War, the Pentagon Is Just Another Customer

3. In what ways might the political logic of incrementalism get in the way of the government adequately responding to the changed policy context? What happens when the goal of maintaining good policy is not reinforced by politics but rather is in conflict? Please provide detailed explanation and specific examples to support your answer.

It would seem that political logic of incrementalism is a policy foundation for public policies that are not receptive to change as a matter of fact it is maladaptive to changing conditions. For example, a Senator or Congress person is seeing their districts get an infusion of federal funding to keep the military base in their state running. They do not want that base to leave because of the economy and monies being spent in that state. When a base close, federal funding stop and as pieces of the funding pie get smaller, each politician is trying to save their bases and funding by justification for reason to stay open. On a current issue, the states are seeing incrementalism stopped because the war in the Middle East ramped down, the National Guards (NG) are deploying less. So, when NG deployments stop, the federal funding for those deployments to the States stop. I hope I understood this question